3stalwarts (137 page)

“My work’s got to be sound. That’s why I come down here for timber, Haskins. I could buy spruce up over by Marcellus, but that wet land’s sour, and there’s a touch of red heart.”

“This canal ain’t going to do me no good.”

“Why not?”

“It’s too far off. All they’re going to do is to tax me for it. Don’t I pay high enough anyways? Here’s my wife needing a new wheel and we’re trying to get round to hire a schoolmaster now.”

“That timber would pay all of that twice over. And listen, Haskins. You talk about the canal being far off from you. Don’t you see what it amounts to? Every farmer will be just as close to Albany market as he is to the canal. Your wheat now fetches you but twenty-nine cents. Why? You’ve got to have it hauled— the miller does, I mean— close to two hundred miles. Now the canal is just about fifteen. It’s going to mean a dollar to the bushel to you.”

“You show me that dollar,” said the farmer, “and I’ll show you my bushel. Wheat’s getting blighted hereabouts, anyways.”

But in the end he would come round, and Hammil and Jerry would turn Bourbon towards the next farm.

The fat man seemed to know his roads and turnings as if he had been born in this far county. And when at last they struck south on the Onondaga road, he had his timbers all lined out.

“Daggit!” he said that morning. “It’s going to be good getting home. It’s good enough for a man like me to sleep in log-house bough-beds or be an edible to bugs, but I do like my own bed to home.”

He grinned.

“When I got married,” he said, “I had a bed made just to suit me. It makes our hired girl complain on wash-days— but”— he chuckled— “I ain’t to home on wash-days.”

Now that his business was done, he seemed able to put every trace of it out of his mind. He had a hundred anecdotes to tell, and his loud laughter echoed in the taverns. When Bourbon put his forehoofs on the turnpike, he, too, seemed to understand that they were bound for home. He struck his eight-mile trot and went mile after mile without a falter.

The immigrants were crowding the road. At Manlius, where the Cherry Valley turnpike entered, there was a bawling knot of cattle and wagons that it seemed could never be straightened into line. It took Jerry half an hour to thread his way through the village.

They nighted at The Purple Whale in Lennox, and it was growing on into the afternoon next day when Bourbon brought them into the Oriskany Valley and Jerry recognized ahead the rise of Paris Hill and knew that Utica was just an hour’s drive.

Hammil laid his hand upon Jerry’s knee.

“Anxious for your girl, boy?”

Jerry did not answer.

Hammil talked half to himself.

“I wonder,” he said, with his eye on Jerry’s profile, “if you didn’t do better than I did? Marrying young. You and her starting off together right from the mark. I got my wife for working— and I’m not sorry, either. But you make or lose together and your heart won’t need to burn you. I used to be that scared sometimes. I mind well the night my timber got afire for the last job afore I wedded. That had me scared.”

For a moment he was silent.

“I wonder what there’ll be for supper,” he said.

And then, as they came into sight of Utica and saw Genesee Street sloping down and all the houses lifting supper smokes, he said, “I think we had a good trip, Jerry. I like you fine. There ain’t going to be so much for us to do till we get to active working… . You ain’t a talkative cuss, anyway.”

“I liked it,” Jerry managed to say.

Caleb fished out his purse.

“Here’s your first pay. Now you hop off here. I reckon that I won’t kill Bourbon tending him for one night. Kiss your girl from me and say I’m coming round to see her.”

Jerry tried to protest, but the fat hand fairly pushed him out. He stood an instant before the store watching the fat figure turning into Bleecker. Then he looked down into his hand. There were four dollar bills. He had got his first raise his first week. He flushed. He had not earned it.

There was a shrill whooping at the back of the store.

Henderson was shouting, “Mary! Mary! Where’s Mary! Mr. Fowler’s back home!”

At first it seemed to Jerry that the evening would never end; but as Mr. Charley questioned him over his pipe and beer, his heart warmed.

“It seems queer,” he said. “You traveling fifty miles along the pike and then when you bend northward coming on the line of this canal. You say it’s going to be forty feet across?”

“Yes,” said Jerry. “The prism’s forty feet at top and twenty-eight at bottom, and it’s four feet deep.”

“That’s like a river,” said Mr. Charley. “All the time I thought, while you were away, how it would be to travel.” He made an ambulatory gesture with his pipe. They were sitting in the bookstore with a brisk fire roaring in the stove. “Look at this. I don’t do any business; and all the time I’ve got to talk to the same people. My brain gets ruts. What’s the matter with it?”

Jerry said, “You might clean out this room and put the books on shelves.”

Lester Charley drew a hand across a pained forehead.

“I might. It might be a success. But what good would that do me? Just so much extra bother. No. I’ve been thinking, why couldn’t I get a boat and do my business on it? I could circulate a library that way; and the only taxes would be toll. They say it won’t amount to much.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jerry said. His ears were for the kitchen, where Mary could be heard helping Mrs. Charley.

“Your wife,” said Mr. Charley, “has turned out right helpful. She’s a nice girl.”

Jerry had a thought that they were paying good money for rent and board, but remembering Mrs. Charley’s gratitude voluminously expressed to Mary after supper, he saw that it was a decent thing to do.

“Shucks,” said Mr. Charley, reading his thoughts. “Women hanker for that kind of thing. Here, I’ll even it up to you with another glass of beer.”

He filled Jerry’s glass from the jug, and Jerry thought he might be right. A woman wanted occupation. So he leaned back comfortably, aware of the four boys listening on the stairs in unnatural quiet, and told about their trip. He held up Bourbon to the bookseller’s admiration, and told about Melvilles and the queer place Cossett’s was. He became so enthralled in the land he had visited that he hardly noticed Mary stealing in and sitting on a pile of books before the window. Her face was quiet, as it had been since he had come home. She folded her hands in her lap, but when he turned towards her, her eyes dropped down.

Mr. Charley turned down the lamp and listened gravely to all he had to say. Now and then his big mouth grinned at some remark of Caleb’s and now and then he threw a glance at Mary. He must have read in her the impatience Jerry could not see, for at last he took pity and said that it was time they went to bed.

It was only then that Jerry’s impatience reawoke from the sound of his own voice. He looked at Mary sheepishly, and followed her upstairs.

The dim-lit loft was quiet. As he came through the trap, Mary was setting down the candle. She took a step towards him, and then dropped her hands and bent her head. She did not move… .

The travel still in Jerry’s nerves awoke him early. Dawn had yet to come. Beside him Mary slept on; and he lay quiet not to wake her.

It seemed to him that the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him was that moment in the loft. They had not talked; and yet Mary had told him all the things he wanted to know.

Overhead he could hear a night rain falling on the roof, and through the windows the damp air brought a scent of lilacs. Mid-May in Utica had opened the lilacs in his absence.

It was so clean; the scent was so sweet. She had put new curtains at the windows. He could see the order in the room; their clothes hung where they should be; the end of her comb just sticking over the top of the bureau. He was glad she was a quiet, unspoken girl. He slept again, this time with a delicious sense of laziness, as if his whole body were drinking rest from the bed… .

When he woke the second time she was awake.

Jerry took her hand, and now he told her of Hammil’s saying that they would have less traveling for a while. Her fingers closed the least bit and were still. She was glad he was back; she had missed him. He told her of his raise in pay and his hand waited. But, instead, she used spoken words to tell him that was fine; and all at once a rooster crowed somewhere be-hind Charley’s yard, and Jerry sprang out of bed.

Downstairs Mrs. Charley’s feet were slapping into the kitchen. Henderson was complaining over the weight of the loaded bucket as he hauled down the well-sweep. In the street a wagon rattled by to a horse’s spanking trot.

After breakfast Hammil appeared at the shop.

“No, I don’t want books, Charley; I wouldn’t have time to read them. Where’s Jerry?”

“He just came in a while ago from fixing your horse.”

“Would he be upstairs?”

“Most likely.”

Hammil’s feet clumped up the stairs. He poked his bare red head through the loft in time to see Mary finishing the bed while Jerry watched her.

“Good morning,” he said. “Is this Mrs. Fowler?”

Jerry introduced him, and Hammil shook her hand while he puffed from climbing the stairs.

“I’m real glad to know you, Mrs. Fowler. Your husband’s told me all about you. Jerry, I think you’re a pretty good hand for business after all. How do you like Utica, Mrs. Fowler?”

Ill at ease himself, Jerry wondered at her calmness in bringing Hammil a chair and answering, “It’s a nice town, Mr. Hammil. Jerry and I’ve been lucky.”

“It’s a good town. But I don’t know how you’ve been lucky.”

“Here,” she said. “The Charleys are good to me, and Jerry was lucky meeting you.”

Hammil sat down and placed a hand on each knee, and looked at some spot between their heads.

“Lucky,” he snorted. ” ‘Tain’t luck. I took a fancy to him and he seems to be all right, that’s all.”

He looked very sheepish.

Mary smiled, quietly.

“I’ve got work to do downstairs,” she said, “if you’ll excuse me, Mr. Hammil.”

“I don’t see how I can,” said Hammil, heaving himself to his feet and standing while she went down. “But I’ll do the best I’m able.”

Jerry felt proud, even when Hammil stepped quickly up to him to poke him with a broad thumb.

“You never told me a single thing about her, Jerry. You’re a sly one. Utica may be a lucky place, but you’re the luckiest man I’ve seen in some time.”

He sat down again immediately to talk business. He said that he had had a letter waiting for him from Myron Holley. Work on the locks probably would not start till autumn; but Holley wanted one built before winter. That would be number one at Cossett’s. The canal wasn’t going to be started till July Fourth, Independence Day. In the meantime he would finish up a few small jobs he had on hand in Utica. His carpenter was in charge there and Hammil thought it would be a good thing for Jerry to work with him, mostly roofing work. He himself would have to take another trip to Albany. He wanted specifications for the iron strapping and sluice gates and quoin points for the locks. They would be cast in Utica and Rome. And he thought he might still hunt a few extra contracts for fencing —yes, the whole canal would have to be fenced on both sides— and odd work, just for pin money for Mrs. Hammil. If Jerry was minded so, they could walk up to the Devereux house where the carpenter was and Jerry could be introduced. While Hammil was away, Jerry could mind Bourbon, feed and exercise him. Mrs. Hammil would make no call on his time— that was understood.

Jerry got his hat and followed Hammil down. In the hall, the contractor halted and said, “You’d better take time to tell Mrs. Fowler. It’s a good thing, when able, to tell your wife where you’re going to, Jerry.”

Lester Charley called through the open door, “It’s damned sight better, Caleb, to tell her when you’re not able.”

Caleb chuckled.

Jerry found Mary in the yard, helping Mrs. Charley hang clothes on a line. Her hands were stretched above her head, the line of her back arched slightly from the hips, and her hair was straggled from wrestling with the heavy linen. When she turned at his voice she had a clothespin in her teeth. She snatched it out to smile, and her cheeks flushed bright against the white sheet.

Jerry told her what Hammil had said.

“Ain’t that fine?” said Mrs. Charley, ducking under a sheet. “My, it will be nice for Mary to have you home.”

Jerry thought that it was strange for Mary to help Mrs. Charley with her washing. He could see that those sheets were not used in the house. But there was no time to ask.

Hammil led him down Genesee Street into a side street to a large house. A ladder leaned up against the eaves, and on the top a man was nailing shingles. The thump of his hammer made a din along the roadway.

“Hey, Rogers!”

The man unbent his back and cautiously approached the eaves. He poked over a lugubrious face.

“Yeanh?”

“Come on down,” bawled Hammil.

A pink-cheeked servant girl looked out through an open window and grinned impudently at Hammil, but when she saw Jerry’s upturned face she drew back behind the curtain coyly.

Rogers backed slowly down the ladder. When he stood in front of them he sighed and rubbed his hands over his buttocks.

Hammil performed the introduction and explained the circumstances.

“Yeanh,” said Rogers. “It don’t make odds to me.”

He turned back for the ladder.

“What’s your hurry?”

“I’ve got to climb back up there, don’t I?”

He spoke all round a mouthful of shingle nails; he looked like a man who had been martyred so often that suffering was just a habit. He laid a slow hand on a rung and began to climb. As he reached the upstairs window, the servant girl shook out a mop.

“Say!” bawled Rogers, and the nails tumbled out of his slack mouth.

The girl looked up in pretty dismay.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers! I didn’t see you coming.”

Hammil guffawed, and the maid slanted an eye at Jerry and slid back. They heard her tittering.

“Self Rogers is a good worker. He’s suffering from dyspepsy and toothache, one thing or another, pretty near continual. Well, you start work this afternoon, Jerry. Now I’ve got to get along.”